“You Maxine?” I asked, wiping my lips.

  “One and only.”

  “Tell me about the Pugilists’ Club.”

  “You don’t fight, do you?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “You’re too pretty.”

  “I’ve never been accused of that before.”

  “You’re not marked up, hon, and your nose has been busted but not often.”

  “Correct on all counts.”

  She sucked on her straw and then put the glass out of sight. “So I started this place about thirty years ago. Back in the day, they were just starting to show the big fights on HBO, you remember. But the thing is, most fighters don’t make a lot of money. They can fight on HBO, but they can’t afford to pay for HBO. So my husband and I got the idea to pool our resources with some other fighters and start a club, somewhere they could watch the televised events and later even PPV. Somewhere comfortable and just for them. It sort of grew into a home away from home for a lot of guys.”

  “I know that feeling. So were you a boxer?”

  “Do I look like a boxer?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Cut the ma’am stuff, fella. I’m not your grandma.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, not me. My husband was a boxer for a while and his father, but my Stone became a trainer. Damned good one. Hang on, darlin’.” She stepped away to a guy with eyes so puffy I wondered how he could see. He looked about sixty, and his eyes the result of repeatedly being cut open in the ring. Maxine poured a couple beers and shared a joke with the guy. After checking that no one else had run dry, she ambled back to me.

  “Where were we?”

  “You were telling me your husband was a trainer. Stone, you said. Anything to do with Stone’s Gym?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, that was him.”

  “He sold it though. Is that right?”

  “I sold it. He died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not as much as me, darlin’.”

  “Can I ask why you sold?”

  “It was Stone’s place, the gym. I couldn’t run that place and this one, and this was my thing.”

  “Did you know Samson before?”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve known Allan since he was a boy.”

  “He looks like a boxer.”

  Maxine stared at the tiled bar. “Yeah, he was a boxer. Until he wasn’t, like all of them.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You don’t know Allan’s story?”

  “No. Only met him once.”

  “But you know Johnny’s story, obviously.”

  “I know he was a boxer. I know he still thinks he is.”

  “How did you wind up working this for him? He wouldn’t have asked for help.”

  “A friend we have in common, Mick.”

  Maxine smiled. “Young Mick. How is he?”

  “You know Mick?”

  “Yeah, I know Mick.”

  “He’s well.”

  “Let me show you something.” Maxine lifted the end of the bar, stepped around, and led me to a nearby wall. She nodded at a photograph. It was one of those square photos that I remembered from my own childhood, the washed-out colors and orange tint of seventies photography. This was a picture of three boys, maybe fifteen years old. They were all leaning over the ropes in a boxing ring, shirtless and sweating, gloves on their hands and irresistible smiles on their unblemished faces. I recognized the eyes of one boy.

  “Is that Mick?”

  “Yep. And that’s Johnny, and that’s Allan.”

  “They’re so young.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  “So they knew each other as kids?”

  “They grew up together. Peas in a pod.”

  “I can’t imagine Mick as a kid.”

  “He was a good boy. Quiet, shy. But he knew his mind.”

  “That sounds like Mick.”

  Maxine moved along the wall to another photograph. It was a picture of a young man straight after a fight, gloves held high in victory, his face puffed and red but high with adrenaline.

  “Johnny?”

  “Yeah. That was the night he earned his title shot.”

  “What kind of title?”

  “GBC welterweight world title.”

  “I take it he didn’t win.”

  “No, he didn’t win. He got knocked out good and proper. The other guy was better, no doubt about it. But he fought for a title, on television and everything. And that was back before fights were on TV all the time. Now any old dog can get on ESPN. Back then it was something.”

  “So what happened to Johnny? I’ve seen his record. It doesn’t make for good reading.”

  “13-81-3,” said Maxine.

  “You know that by heart?”

  “I know the records of all my boys.”

  “But you see what I mean. It’s not exactly a world champion record.”

  “No. Johnny was a good boxer, and he earned his shot, but there were some things Johnny was not good at. You know much about selling tickets in boxing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It might not seem like it, but there’s usually a home guy and an away guy. The home is expected to win. The away guy might be a chump or he might be a journeyman, but what he isn’t is a ticket seller. See, fans go to see their favorites. If you’ve got a good style and you talk the talk at the weigh-in, then you get fans and you sell tickets for the promoter. If you don’t catch people’s attention, then you don’t sell tickets, and promoters aren’t interested in putting you on the card, at least not as the home guy.”

  “And Johnny wasn’t a ticket seller?”

  “No. Johnny could be abrasive. Heart of gold but not a people person. He didn’t come across well and got stage fright at weigh-ins, so he looked rude and mean when all he was was scared. So after his shot, the promoters around town decided Johnny wasn’t a ticket seller, and once that’s decided, your title days are done.”

  “So how did he fight so many fights? It’s nearly a hundred. Isn’t that a lot?”

  “It is a lot. Johnny loved boxing, and he wasn’t much good at anything else, so he took on the role of the other guy—the opponent. A journeyman. Even the ticket sellers have to fight someone, and back in those days promoters would set up fights for the ticket sellers as they rose through the rankings. Johnny was a technically strong fighter—decent feet, proper stance, fast hands. So he was a good test for an up-and-comer. But Johnny learned quick that if he wanted to keep fighting, he couldn’t be knocking those guys down, even if he was better. Fans don’t want to see the opponent win.”

  “So the matches were fixed?”

  “Hell no. Fixing a fight is like when a guy goes down in the fourth round on orders. Johnny never did anything like that. But he’d box in a way that ensured a points decision. He’d fight properly for three rounds, then move around or hold on for three, then he’d box for two. And most often the judges would go with the ticket seller.”

  “It doesn’t sound completely kosher.”

  “It’s not like that at the top. Contenders want to win, champions want to win. But is there any sport where judges or referees or umpires aren’t prone to making hometown decisions?”

  I shrugged. “So Johnny went from contender to chump?”

  “No. Johnny was no chump. He was a boxer, through and through. He wouldn’t have become a journeyman if he couldn’t box. He learned to fight in a way that preserved him, to not get knocked down too much so he could fight more often.”

  “Looks like he got hit often enough.”

  “Yeah, he did. Like you say, almost a hundred fights. Too many.”

  “That many fights, how did he finish so hard up for money?”

  “His last seventy fights were undercard. Not a lot of money in those. Maybe a thousand bucks on a good night, before expenses. On a bad night, a lot less.”

  “He said some nights he fought for gas money.”

  “I believe it. But you do the math on that over a twenty-year career. It’s not a living wage. He had other jobs, of course. Stone had him cleaning at the gym at one point.”

  I glanced back at the photo of the three boys. “So how did Samson end up with the gym?”

  “His career finished early.”

  “Why?”

  Maxine gestured at the picture of Johnny with his gloves in the air. “What this photo doesn’t show is the guy on the mat.”

  “Samson?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought they were friends.”

  “Sure they were. Friends fought each other all the time. In sparring, training, often in amateur fights. But the promoter had two young contenders he couldn’t separate, so he set up a fight, one against the other, for the right to challenge the champ. Johnny versus Allan.”

  “And Johnny won.”

  “He did.”

  “And you said Allan got knocked out?”

  “Depends who you talk to. Most guys ringside say the judges had Allan in front and Johnny got him with a liver shot.”

  “What’s a liver shot?”

  “What it sounds like. A punch to the body, right around the liver. If it hits in the right spot, it sends emergency signals all over the body, like a fire drill, and the body can shut down. I’ve seen guys get a liver shot and be fine for up to five seconds, then they drop to one knee and you think they’ll just get up after the standing count, but they don’t. Their bodies won’t let them.”

  “So Samson got this liver shot and went down?”

  “Not immediately. This is what guys who were ringside say. We saw it here on the TV. Johnny followed with a cross, and Allan went down. He still claims to this day that he slipped, that the punch didn’t hurt him, but like I say, those in the know claim the liver shot was the thing that did him in. He dropped and Johnny got the title chance.”

  “And then lost.”

  “It happens.”

  “Did Allan ever get another opportunity?”

  “Allan never fought again. He twisted his knee when he went down and had to do PT to get back. Then he got drunk one night and got in a bar fight, and the other guy karate-kicked him in the knee. After that, it was wrecked. He couldn’t move around the ring fast enough.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He became a trainer. He worked for my Stone for years and brought through a few good fighters. When Stone got sick and couldn’t do it anymore, Allan just kind of stepped in and kept the place going. Never asked for extra money or nothing. He just took it on. At the end, Stone said he wanted the place to live on after him, and we agreed that Allan had shown he could do that, so after Stone passed I sold it to him.”

  I glanced one more time at the photograph of the boys. “And what about Mick?”

  “Mick loved the game. I think he loved the camaraderie most of all. The brotherhood. He worked hard, but he never had the goods.”

  “He didn’t fight?”

  “Amateur, yes, like the rest of them. But he never went pro, because his reach was too short. If you have short arms, you gotta be lightning on your feet, and Mick wasn’t.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “He stayed around, you know, training and such. Keeping fit. But he got into the restaurant game, worked in a few kitchens here and there, and kind of drifted away from the others a little because cooks and boxers mostly work nights. Then I think he had an uncle who left him some money—not a lot but enough—and he used it as a down payment with the bank to start Longboard Kelly’s.”

  “I never did ask him where that name came from.”

  “Me either.”

  “So I take it he isn’t a member of your club.”

  “Of course he is. He’s one of my boys.”

  “But he’s at Longboard’s all the time.”

  “And I’m here all the time. That’s how it is, running a small business. But Mick’s still welcome anytime he comes.”

  Maxine turned and walked back behind the bar. She refilled glasses and then loaded some dirty glassware into a dishwasher below the bar, the smell of bleach wafting into my nostrils.

  “But you didn’t come here just for a history lesson,” she said.

  “No. Johnny’s been denied by the fighters’ fund. I think he and Tina are running close to the bone with rent and bills, and the doctor they made him go to claims his ailments aren’t boxing related. I spoke to another doctor who disagrees, but I wondered if there were any other guys here who had made claims to the fund.”

  Maxine stepped to the taps and poured a beer, which she deposited in front of me. “Bring that with you,” she said as she flipped the bar open and walked across the room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Maxine led me to four older guys seated around a table, ignoring the boxing match on the television above them. Four sets of eyes were focused on the dominos that snaked out in different directions on the table.

  “Gentlemen,” said Maxine. “This is Miami. He’s helping Slumber and Tina get some dough from that boxing fund. You boys be nice.”

  “You a boxer?” asked an old man with chin stubble that looked like lint.

  “Nope.”

  “What kind of joint you running here, Max?”

  “Can I buy you boys a round?” I asked.

  “I like the look of this guy.”

  “A round for the table, coming up,” said Maxine.

  “Take a seat, kid,” said a guy with ears like potatoes.

  I pulled up a folding chair and watched the game for a moment. When I played dominos as a kid, it always seemed a slow and gentle game. But I had seen it played in the Caribbean with a lot of ruckus and laughter. Here the pieces were slapped down with the percussion of Claymore mines, and the trash talk was thick and fast.

  “Boom!” said one guy in a flat cap as he drove a piece into the table.

  “That’s your best?” said Chin Stubble. “No wonder you got knocked down in ’85.”

  “Teddy the Machine?” said Flat Cap. “He was a damn middleweight.”

  “You’re a middleweight.”

  “I wish.”

  The old man cackled, and Potato Ears turned to me. “What’s your name again, son?”

  “Miami. Miami Jones.”

  “Ooh, that’s a good one,” said Flat Cap. “You sure you’re not a fighter?”

  “Only when provoked.”

  “I’m Roy,” said Potato Ears. “This is Zeke, Fozzie, and Lew.”

  “Gentlemen.”

  Maxine arrived with two beers and two whiskeys, and we toasted to our good health.

  “So you’re helping out young Johnny,” said Roy.

  “That’s right. He’s not in a great way.”

  “That boy took a lot of punishment,” said Zeke.

  “I heard he was decent at not getting hit too much.”

  “Sure, in any one fight, but over the years? You don’t lose that many and not wear a few.”

  “Right. So he kind of needs whatever help this fighters’ fund can give him, but they don’t want to play ball.”

  “What a shock,” said Lew.

  “Why? Any of you guys got ailments?”

  “Son, that’s the elephant in the room,” said Roy. “Every ex-fighter has ailments. If it’s not your head, it’s your hands, or your knees, or your eyes—”

  “Or the headaches or the memory on the fritz,” continued Fozzie.

  “So you guys get help from the fund?”

  There was a ripple of laughter around the table, but not like they were at a George Carlin show. This was more like someone had told a bawdy story about the deceased at their wake.

  “So you didn’t get money or you didn’t try?”

  “We all tried, son,” said Roy. “But I’ll tell you, I don’t know a single man who got money out of that thing. Take Lew here: he don’t hear too good.”

  “What?”

  “Funny guy. But he wore a haymaker in the ear back in ’87—”

  “’86.”

  “I stand corrected, ’86. He was literally deaf for what, a week?”

  “As good as. Hurt like hell too.”

  “It came back, sort of, but over the years it just got worse and worse until now—you’re deaf without that Terminator thing in your ear, right?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, see? The fund’s doc tells him it’s just old age. In one ear. The same ear that got smacked all them years ago. We all got stories like that, kid.”

  “Who was the doctor you saw?” I asked Lew.

  “What was his name?” said Lew.

  “Wrecking Ball,” said Fozzie.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said Lew. “Wrexham. Doc Wrexham.”

  “You all saw this Dr. Wrexham?”

  “He’s their guy. You don’t see him, you don’t see no one.”

  “Same guy who saw Johnny, huh?” said Roy.

  “Yeah.”

  I glanced across the room, thinking about Dr. Wrexham, when I spotted a familiar face with murine features: Ricky the Fudge was in conversation with two guys at a nearby table.

  “You boys know that guy?” I said.

  “Ricky the Fudge,” said Roy, like he had just found a raccoon living in his basement. He turned, waved to Maxine, then pointed in the direction of the dealer.

  “Hey, I’ve told you, this is a private club!”

  Ricky the Fudge’s shoulder went slack as Maxine strode out from behind the bar with a full head of steam. “Get your keister out of my club.”

  Ricky put his palms up and took two steps backward. “Chill, nana.”

  A big guy with shoulders like a freeway overpass stood from a chair by the window and stepped toward Ricky. The kid nearly tripped over himself getting out of the room, his sneakers audibly hitting the steps on the way down. The big guy stood at the top of the stairs watching Ricky, then returned to his seat without so much as a nod to Maxine. She groaned and turned on her heel back to the bar. I got the distinct impression this wasn’t a club that needed a bouncer at the door.

  “He here much?” I asked.

  “He’s like a kicked dog,” said Roy. “Comes around looking for scraps, gets the boot, and runs away for a while but always comes skulking back.”

  “This place doesn’t look like a hot market.”